News from RISCOS Ltd No. 17 July 24th 2001 ============== RISCOS Ltd Annual Report 2001 ----------------------------- The RISCOS Ltd 2nd Annual Report is now available on-line at http://www.riscos.com/news/news_items/PR120701.htm There are both PDF and Plain Text Versions available. RISC OS Select -------------- We have been very pleased with the response to the RISC OS Select scheme despite the very negative comments that a small minority of the usual doom and gloom merchants feel it is their duty to expound. Some of the Comp.Sys.Acorn newsgroups and Website discussion forums have carried extensive threads which have usually originated from postings by one or two people who have personal axes to grind against RISCOS Ltd. Luckily most adult RISC OS users have little interest in reading postings from immature students who feel the need to liberally spread e******ves into their messages as their way of trying to make out that their view is the correct one because they feel so forcefully about it. The vast majority of the RISC OS market realises that there are considerable commercial issues at stake when deciding what activities RISCOS Ltd is to undertake and they are able to make logical decisions about the future for RISC OS, rather than pursuing arguments that cannot lead to a sensible commercial outcome. Many of you will have seen the August 2001 issue of Acorn User which contained a report on the RISC OS 2001 Expo in Holland, which mistakenly reported that my speech at the show stated that there was no desktop market left and that I had been very negative, offering no direction for desktop computers. To put matters straight there will be a follow up article in the next issue of Acorn User which will correct many items raised in that article and others in the same issue. N.B The two articles about the show were written by Frank Kraaij who is the Dutch representative of MicroDigital Europe. What I really said at the show was that the desktop market is changing and RISC OS must change as well. I compared the reality of the volume of sales that a company like Apple achieves and put the RISC OS market into perspective beside it, showing that whilst there are numerous things we would like to do with RISC OS, they must be restricted to those that have a commercial reality. The RISC OS Select Scheme is just one change that will allow us to continue to offer updates to RISC OS that would simply not otherwise be possible for a variety of reasons to do with both financing and more importantly the availability of ROM's. There is still a bright future for RISC OS and we hope to be making exciting announcements about that future in the forthcoming months. Finally I would like to point out that we will be sending Receipts, Invoices, Web Site Passwords etc all out in one package during August. It has not been possible to acknowledge every application for the RISC OS Select Scheme individually, because it would simply take too long. If your cheque or Credit Card has been debited then we have received you application, so please don't worry. If you sent a payment in more than two weeks ago and it has not been taken yet, then by all means contact the sales department by telephone 02920 492324 or email mailto:foundation@riscos.com to see if your order has been received. News from Pace -------------- There has also been some discussion on newsgroups about activity within Pace and their future plans for RISC OS. All I can say on the subject is that the internal plans of Pace are obviously confidential and that whilst rumours usually have some elements of truth, they may also be subject to different interpretations as they pass down the chain, in the manner of chinese whispers. RISCOS Ltd and Pace are still working together on RISC OS based projects and until any official announcements are made by Pace, then please take any rumours as just that... rumours. Newsgroups ----------- If you can't keep up with the volume of messages in the Newsgroups and want to free up space on your hard drive taken by postings, there is now an alternative. The Deja News newsgroup archive has been taken over by Google who are now offering a fully searchable online service that makes it very easy to catch up with the lastest discussions. Take a look at http://groups.google.com/ for further details. I would like to customise my icons how can I do this? ----------------------------------------------------- If you have ever played around with RISC OS you may have found that clicking Menu button over the Apps icon on the iconbar brings up a menu titled Resources and a single entry called Open '$' If you then select Open '$' you will get a new window titled Resources:$ If you then double click on Resources you will get a listing of all the applications that reside inside Resources. To see the sprites that make up the standard RISC OS desktop take a look inside the Wimp directory. The Sprites22 file will show all the application sprites and furniture for RISC OS 4. If you want to replace them with your own designs then you need to create your own Sprite using !Paint. Once you have created your own sprite it can be loaded using the command.. IconSprites . This can be placed in Boot.Choices.Boot.Tasks as an Obey file along with the new spritefile. The filename of your new spritefile is not important. But the individual sprite names within the spritefile must match those of the icons you wish to replace. i.e to load your own version of the RISC OS 4 logo you would need a sprite called switcher. There are of course PD programs that provide a similar function but if you want to just play around with new icons this is an easy way to do it. Low Cost Internet Access ------------------------ BT SurfTime Anytime ------------------- If you are concerned about the possibly high cost of letting your family use the internet a lot then there is now an option which means you will know exactly what the Internet will cost each month. Whilst the free Internet services such as RedHotAnt have turned out to be to good to be true, BT have at last bowed to pressure to provide a fixed monthly rate charge for Internet access via telephone. That is a fixed rate for the telephone calls to an ISP that supports the BT SurfTime Anytime service. If you want to have unlimited Internet access then you just pay £19.99 a month to BT and a similar amount to the ISP that is providing your Internet access. A list of the ISPs that support the service is available from the BT Internet Web Site. http://www.surftime.bt.com/isps.html ANT Internet Suite ------------------ If you placed an order for the ANT Internet Suite we expect to ship the copies on CD in about two weeks. The delay has been caused by ANT's move to new premises in Cambridge and a subsequent delay in getting the full sources out to us. Change of email --------------- We have had a lot of people complaining that they haven't been receiving email versions of the Newsletter. This is invariably due to them having changed email address and not told us. With the closure of RedHotAnt many more people than usual have received emails because we don't know your address. So if you are reading this on the web site then please let us know if you have changed your eamil address. Membership Renewals ------------------- In order to rationalise the differences in postage and VAT rates around the world it has been decided that there will be one membership cost in the future. That cost will include VAT where appropriate, but if you live in a non VAT country then the cost will still be the same as the VAT inclusive price to cover the additional cost of overseas postage. i.e everyone will pay the same price which is to be held at £35.25 until May 2002. Forthcoming Shows ----------------- The next RISC OS Show is the ARM Club Show, which is being organised in conjunction with ROUGOL and SASAUG. The two day RISC OS 2001 Show will take place on the weekend of 20th and 21st of October. The venue will be the Blue Mountain Conference Centre at Binfield, Bracknell. The venue offers excellent road and rail links, being only 5 minutes from Junctiion 10 of the M4 and fast trains from Paddington taking only 30 minutes. A shuttle bus service will operate from Reading Station. The conference centre features a number of interconnected rooms giving greater space and flexibility for exhibitors and visitors. A dedicated theatre will allow the usual popular presentations to take place. RISCOS Ltd will be present at the Show and in the Theatre to deal with your enquiries. Put it in your diary now. Replying to queries from this Newsletter ---------------------------------------- If you are responding to a specific query in this newsletter please use the appropriate mailto: address to reply rather than replying to the sender of this email. Also don't reply to the general foundation or admin email addresses as your enquiry may not get dealt with promptly. We try to reply to all enquiries within 5 days. But at peak times it may take longer to reply. If you have received this email in error, or wish to be removed from this list then please send an email to mailto:foundation@riscos.com with the subject REMOVE Membership numbers ------------------ Please quote your membership number on all correspondence with the Foundation as this will speed up our administration and avoid confusion over people who have the same name. regards -- Paul Middleton RISCOS Ltd ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright ©2001 RISCOS Ltd. RISC OS is a trademark of Pace Micro Technology plc. Certain other product names, brand names, and company names may be trademarks or designations of their respective owners.